Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 16:55:32 EST From: BelletJr@aol.com To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Can't boot from hard drive (5.0) Message-ID: <65.cf505b7.2bab92d4@aol.com>
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Hello! Here is a summary of a thread I started on comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc to no avail. I hope someone will be able to give me some advice here I've installed FreeBSD 5.0 on the second disk of my PC where I had an old 4.5 working. Unfortunately the install process failed to write the MBR correctly and with the current BootMgr, I can not boot on the FreeBSD disk. I've booted with a floppy and re-run sysinstall. I've tried to mark ad2s2 as bootable but just got: ERROR: Unable to write data to disk ad2! Disk partition write returned an error status! I think it is related to what is written in the "FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE Errata" about disklabel -B: "The geom(4)-based disk partitioning code in the kernel will not allow an open partition to be overwritten. This usually prevents the use of disklabel -B to update the boot blocks on a disk because the a partition overlaps the space where the boot blocks are stored. A suggested workaround is to boot from an alternate disk, a CDROM, or a fixit floppy." But the workaround does not seem to be efficient with my box. I don't get the previous error message when I mark the second disk as "bootable" with sysinstall/fdisk, but I still can not boot from it. The output of fdisk ad2 is as follows: ----------------------------------------------------------------- >******* Working on device /dev/ad2 ******* >parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are: >cylinders=19852 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl) > >Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1 >parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are: >cylinders=19852 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl) > >Media sector size is 512 >Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1 >Information from DOS bootblock is: >The data for partition 1 is: >sysid 5 (0x05),(Extended DOS) > start 16065, size 4176900 (2039 Meg), flag 0 > beg: cyl 15/ head 15/ sector 1; > end: cyl 1023/ head 10/ sector 63 >The data for partition 2 is: >sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD) > start 4192965, size 15807960 (7718 Meg), flag 80 (active) > beg: cyl 1023/ head 255/ sector 63; > end: cyl 1023/ head 2/ sector 63 >The data for partition 3 is: ><UNUSED> >The data for partition 4 is: ><UNUSED> ----------------------------------------------------------------- The problem seems that the number of cylinders is not equal to the one displayed in the BIOS setup: 16320. If I force this geometry value with fdisk via sysinstall, will I have to reinstall completely the system? Here is the output from boot0cfg -v ad0: ----------------------------------------------------------------- ># flag start chs type end chs offset size >1 0x80 0: 1: 1 0x06 618: 63:63 63 2495745 > >version=1.0 drive=0x80 mask=0xf ticks=182 >options=nopacket,update,nosetdrv >default_selection=F1 (Slice 1) ----------------------------------------------------------------- and the output from boot0cfg -v ad2: ----------------------------------------------------------------- ># flag start chs type end chs offset size >1 0x00 15: 15: 1 0x05 1023: 10:63 16065 4176900 >2 0x80 1023:255:63 0xa5 1023: 2:63 4192965 15807960 > >version=1.0 drive=0x82 mask=0xf ticks=182 >options=nopacket,update,nosetdrv >default_selection=F5 (Drive 1) ----------------------------------------------------------------- According to the manual, I may use the 'packet' option of boot0cfg since I have to boot above cylinder 1023, but my BIOS does not seem to be compatible with this option. What can I do? Do I have to go through the process of creating a "dangerously-dedicated" slice? I had no problem to boot on this disk with FreeBSD 4.x. BTW, here's the ouput of disklabel ad2s2: ----------------------------------------------------------------- ># /dev/ad2s2c: >type: ESDI >disk: ad2s2 >label: >flags: >bytes/sector: 512 >sectors/track: 63 >tracks/cylinder: 16 >sectors/cylinder: 1008 >cylinders: 19852 >sectors/unit: 20010816 >rpm: 3600 >interleave: 1 >trackskew: 0 >cylinderskew: 0 >headswitch: 0 # milliseconds >track-to-track seek: 0 # milliseconds >drivedata: 0 > >8 partitions: ># size offset fstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] > a: 524288 0 4.2BSD 2048 16384 32776 # (Cyl. 0 - 520*) > b: 362176 524288 swap # (Cyl. 520*- 879*) > c: 15807960 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 -15682*) > d: 524288 886464 4.2BSD 2048 16384 32776 # (Cyl. 879*-1399*) > e: 524288 1410752 4.2BSD 2048 16384 32776 # (Cyl. 1399*-1919*) > f: 13872920 1935040 4.2BSD 2048 16384 28512 # (Cyl. 1919*-15682*) >Warning, partition c doesn't cover the whole unit! >Warning, An incorrect partition c may cause problems for standard system utilities ----------------------------------------------------------------- and with the -r option, disklabel -r ad2s2: ----------------------------------------------------------------- ># /dev/ad2s2c: >type: ESDI >disk: ad2s2 >label: >flags: >bytes/sector: 512 >sectors/track: 63 >tracks/cylinder: 16 >sectors/cylinder: 1008 >cylinders: 19852 >sectors/unit: 20010816 >rpm: 3600 >interleave: 1 >trackskew: 0 >cylinderskew: 0 >headswitch: 0 # milliseconds >track-to-track seek: 0 # milliseconds >drivedata: 0 > >8 partitions: ># size offset fstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] > a: 524288 4192965 4.2BSD 2048 16384 32776 # (Cyl. 4159*-679*) > b: 362176 4717253 swap # (Cyl. 4679*- 5039*) > c: 15807960 4192965 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 4159*-19842*) > d: 524288 5079429 4.2BSD 2048 16384 32776 # (Cyl. 5039*-5559*) > e: 524288 5603717 4.2BSD 2048 16384 32776 # (Cyl. 5559*-6079*) > f: 13872920 6128005 4.2BSD 2048 16384 28512 # (Cyl. 6079*-19842*) >Warning, partition c doesn't start at 0! >Warning, partition c doesn't cover the whole unit! >Warning, An incorrect partition c may cause problems for standard system utilities ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks in advance! 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